No Path of Flowers
by Yamino Majo
Summary: A Shuuei-centric fic on family, friends, and loyalty. For penguinontherun. Extended notes/spoiler warnings under the cut. Un-betaed.


No Path of Flowers

--

Full Notes: This story has vague spoilers for the Ran family from the novels, with ambiguous and possibly non-canon compliant timelines. If you don't know who Setsuna, Juusanhime and Shuun/Jin are, you might be lost if you read this fic.

Title is from the quotation "No path of flowers leads to glory", Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695)

Regarding the triplets' name: The head of the Ran clan is known as Ran Setsuna, but the triplets have their own names (even though no one can tell who goes with what name). The names are Yuki (snow), Hana (flower), and Tsuki (moon). This is actually three out of the four …um, I'm not sure if this translates exactly, but the four mainstays of natural beauty, which are wind, flower, snow and moon. So they're technically missing only 'kaze' (wind) before completing the set.

Juusanhime literally means "Thirteenth Princess"

--

"I think it should be 'Kaze'," one of the dark haired, blue eyed boys declared from where he was sitting on the divan. His chubby legs were kicking the air, too short to reach the ground. Another boy, identical down to the last hair, to the last frog-tie on his rich blue robes, made a scoffing noise.

"It sounds silly." He decided. "Ran Kaze?" As if pulled at the same time by invisible string, the two of them turned toward their third. "What do you think?"

The last of the Ran triplets was sitting on the bed, cross-legged and proper. "Father probably won't let us call him Kaze," was his prediction. "I overheard the servants saying that an auspicious name had been chosen already."

Hana grinned, and the expression was reflected on his brothers' faces. "Like how they picked 'Setsuna'?"

Tsuki perked up. "I wonder if Mother will have twins?"

They all contemplated having twin brothers for a moment. "I don't know." One finally said.

As if completing his thought, the second nodded. "It wouldn't be auspicious."

The third was smiling but it was unusually solemn for such a young face. "We are already inauspicious enough."

There were footsteps in the halls, and the ornately carved doors to the triplets' rooms were pushed open. "Setsuna!"

The three of them turned to face their father, reacting to the call so instantly that it was impossible to tell who had been the original Setsuna in the first place. The elders that followed their father seemed disappointed, but the Ran clan head was beaming, with a bundle of cloth and baby in his arms.

"Come meet your new little brother, Shuuei."

--

She poured the tea perfectly, not a hair out of place and not a beat out of step even though she was tiny, maybe only ten years old at the most. Shuuei only noticed because she was sitting next to Jin for some reason, and that meant that Jin wasn't sitting next to him, which meant that he was sitting next to the triplets, all of whom were eager to subtly play pranks on the rest of the Ran entourage.

"That's Juusanhime," one of his brothers whispered as he passed the braised pork in wine sauce. Shuuei sniffed. All girls are icky, as far as he was concerned, though he would be nice to them only because he was Ran down to the bones. "Our half-sister."

"One of them," another triplet added, and Shuuei caught the unremarkable slide of his hands from the table, without a doubt passing some sort of spicy sauce onto their third, who was sitting across from the elder that most loudly demanded their death. "The thirteenth." He appended, "in case that wasn't clear."

"So lucky," The first sighed, "She's cute. She'll probably want to hang around you and Jin. It'll be like Ryuuren all over again."

"Merciful goddess, I hope not." Shuuei muttered under his breath. He was of the opinion that the triplets doted on Ryuuren mostly because Ryuuren was as weird as the three of them combined, and then some. The triplets always got a kick out of striking people speechless with their antics, so the fact that Ryuuren was three times as effective as they are at that totally tickled their fancy. Maybe too much.

It wasn't until after the banquet, when Juusanhime shoved him out of a tree and ruined his nice clothes, and made it up to him by showing him and Jin how to sneak in the back doors of the kitchens in order to filch sweets, did Shuuei decide that maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

For a girl, of course.

--

He hated girls.

She was chortling, practically rolling on the grassy slope where they usually took their lunches when the three of them went out riding. Jin was grinning from ear to ear, his one remaining eye sparkling. "You-You got your butt kicked by a guy you thought was a girl?!"

Shuuei decide that he hated Jin too, for telling the sordid tale (not that Juusanhime wouldn't've found out at some point. Girls were insidious like that). "He looked like a girl." He muttered sullenly, and that sent Juusanhime into fresh peals of laughter.

"I really don't think it would've been nearly as bad if Shuuei hadn't said it out loud," Jin said in his smooth, calm voice and Shuuei punched him in the arm. "What? You don't just blurt out stuff like 'you're not a girl!' to someone that just held his own against trained assassins."

"I was surprised, okay?" Shuuei threw up his hands. "You and Setsuna-aniue! As if you've never lost before!"

Jin punched back, albeit not hard, and Juusanhime straightened. She was still smiling, but it was sympathy mixed with amusement. Shuuei felt slightly mollified. "Right, right," Jin said. "You've lost to me plenty of times, so you're going to have to work harder if you want to beat 'Princess' Seien next time." Shuuei found a hand roughly messing up his bangs, and he swatted at it while Juusanhime snickered.

"I dare you to say that to his face," Shuuei muttered.

Jin looked innocent. "Say what?"

--

They told each other everything, though at times Shuuei thought it felt like Jin wanted to say something but didn't. Since Shuuei never asked, it didn't fall in the realm of not-telling.

As such, it wasn't really a surprise when one day, while caring for their swords after a practice session, Jin said "I proposed to Juusanhime," in the same tone he might've said, "today's weather was nice."

Shuuei tilted his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. Jin's hand stilled and while the other boy didn't look nervous, per se, his aura of impeccable calm didn't seem as impeccable as usual. But Shuuei couldn't keep it up for long and his grin broke through. "Finally." He said with relief. "And here I thought I'd have to kick your ass to get you to admit it!"

Jin's smile was not precisely relieved, but close, but it faded into surprise when Shuuei rolled his eyes and poked Jin in the chest.

"I trust your intentions toward my little sister are honorable?" he asked solemnly.

Jin had always been the hoarder of words where Shuuei had spent them freely. But his affirmative spoke more volumes than the entirety of the Ran's collection of love poetry.

--

He hit a wall in Sa Province: an invisible wall of ignorance, of badly kept records, of a terribly understaffed regional office. The trail disappeared there, the second prince of the Shi family seemed to have grown wings and flown away at some point between the capital and Sa Province's capital.

"'This will be good training for you'," he muttered under his breath as he flipped through the stack of reports from the provincial law enforcement for the past few years, trying to find any hint where Seien might've gone. "'Information gathering is an invaluable skill'," he mimicked, seeing three identical grins in his minds' eye. His brothers probably didn't even really want to find Seien; they just wanted him out of their hair for a while.

If it was any other fool's errand, he would turn back right away and give them a piece of his mind…But _he_ wanted to find Seien, there was still a rematch in the future where their paths crossed again. He had years of sweat and bruises and endless training to pay the prince back for, after all.

--

The trail ended abruptly after the last breakthrough. He had gotten desperate enough to go through the jail records, and that required some very delicate pulling of strings (since this was not an 'official' Ran inquiry, he couldn't officially use his clan's power). Some of the testimonies from the prisoners held years ago on charges of banditry mentioned someone that matched the prince's description, and he went to the province's jails with high hopes of talking to at least ONE person who might be able to tell him where the prince went.

The official barely went through the papers Shuuei presented him with before saying, "I can't help you, sir. They have been executed."

Shuuei stared at him. "…executed?"

"All of them," the paper-pusher confirmed, and Shuuei's disappointment was perhaps a bit too obvious, so he followed up with an explanation. "They were all part of the same bandit group, one that had escaped the law for too long, sir. There had been orders to execute any prisoners as soon as we have enough evidence of their crimes."

--

It might've ended there, it might not have. Shuuei would never know, because the very next day, a letter reached him from home. He opened the letter with dread, somehow knowing that the other thing that prompted him to go on this fool's errand was about to catch up to him.

The letter was typically short and to the point. _Return home._ Enclosed separately was an invitation as well as a list of gifts to be purchased for his brother's wedding.

--

He was brushing the horse's mane when the stable doors opened behind him. He steadfastly refused to look, even when Jin's hand landed heavily on his head, mussing his bangs.

"You can't run away forever," Jin finally said.

And because Jin was Jin, there was no point in denying it. Shuuei batted his hand aside and muttered, "Watch me."

A week later, barely two days after Setsuna's wedding, he set out for Kiyou to take the National Exams.

--

"I am not ineb-emmmbbu—I am not drunk!"

"You are so drunk," his own words weren't exactly unslurred either, but Shuuei grinned and poured Kouyuu another cup. Kouyuu was pretty funny normally, but alcohol seemed to render him more hilarious than ever.

"You!" A finger was jabbed at his face, thankfully far enough away to avoid putting out one of his eyes. "What's wrong with you?!"

"What?"

Kouyuu scowled, his eyes slightly unfocused. "You! You've been pecu-perul—you've been weird all day! Ever since you got that letter!"

He took another drink before facing up to that. "It's some family thing."

Abruptly, Kouyuu's face turned sympathetic. Shuuei found himself wondering suddenly if Kouyuu had 'family thing's too, things that made him need a few (a lot) of good, stiff drinks. "What happened?"

In retrospect, Shuuei probably shouldn't've told him, as it's Ran business and that's no one else's business, especially not a Kou's (even an adopted one). But somehow Shuuei found the 'my best friend was executed for patricide because he had to defend my half-sister's honor against his father' part spilling out.

"Bastards," Shuuei wasn't even sure who he was cursing anymore – Jin, Jin's father, or his older brothers. "No one told me. I could've done something. _Bastards._" It was a lie, but he would've tried. He didn't know what hurt worse – that his brothers didn't tell him because they thought he would take Jin and Juusanhime's side, or that Jin and Juusanhime didn't tell him because they thought he would choose the clan.

It was hardly eloquent, but somehow Kouyuu found the right words. "That sucks."

Shuuei regretfully concluded that was true.

--

The next morning, he woke to a massive hangover and Kouyuu snoring. Strangely enough, he also felt lighter.

It also helped that Kouyuu didn't remember a single thing.

--

Ryuuki said 'of course', when Shuuei had asked him whether he would be missed. It was said so matter-of-factly, as if Ryuuki couldn't conceive of giving any other answer. Despite working for Ryuuki these past two years, it still took Shuuei by surprise. Of course he was going to be missed. Of course.

--

"It's stupid, you know," Juusanhime told him. She looked thinner than he remembered, and there was a subtle melancholy edge to her smile. She was a Ran, but she was not one who could make things go her way, no matter what.

The absence of their third, tall and dark and calm, ached like a phantom limb. They didn't speak of him, but that seemed to only underline the fact that he was gone. But those words Jin never spoke to him were clear now, and Shuuei didn't plan to let them fade as Jin did. He certainly wasn't going to let them turn and mutate on him, into something as unfamiliar and strange as Shuun.

"It's not," he said, smiling back. Her arms around his shoulders were warm, and he was glad. "It's not." He was a Ran. That meant many things, this name of the most powerful colored clan, but he couldn't help but think about the triplets, about Ryuuren, about Jin.

He wasn't Setsuna, he could not make things go his way no matter what. But he was a Ran, and the most important thing about being a Ran was loyalty…Shuuei now understood what Jin never told him. It wasn't about loyalty to family, loyalty to the clan, loyalty to his friends and his liege.

It wasn't that he loved his brothers or sisters any less. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the family and what they had done for him. It wasn't that he wasn't willing to do things for the clan. It was just that some part of him had chosen Ryuuki, and Rans chose for life.

It was, ultimately, as simple as being loyal to himself.

--

"I might never get better," she told him, and, "I don't even like you."

Shusui was always beautiful, whether she was in a lady-in-waiting's refined robes or in the plain cloth of assassin garb. But he thought that there was nothing more beautiful than her moments of clarity, the dawn-blue of her eyes meeting his.

"It's all right," he said. "I can wait forever."

--

End


End file.
